These days taking photos and sharing them to social media to document our daily lives, adventures, and travel has become the norm. However sometimes we can be a bit careless with our posts, where what we think is acceptable might not be to someone else, like taking selfies during a funeral, and so on.However moving forwards, a report from National Geographic has revealed that Instagram will now alert users when they come across wildlife-related posts about the potential behavior to animals or the environment. The publication cites an example where people might go to a zoo and hug a sloth in a photo op, which might seem innocent, but could potentially encourage harmful behavior, like taking animals away from their natural habitat to place them in zoos as attractions.
This is an issue that has been brought up many times in the past, like elephant shows and rides in Thailand, where some claim that while it might seem fun on the surface, there is a good amount of abuse behind the scenes to get the animals to be so compliant. There is also controversy regarding the tiger temples also in Thailand where the seemingly tame tigers are said to be heavily drugged in order to get them to be so docile.
According to Instagram spokeswoman Emily Cain, “We care about our community, including the animals and the wildlife that are an important part of the platform. I think it’s important for the community right now to be more aware. We’re trying to do our part to educate them.”
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